First Oil Brushstroke

 Our art club is having a challenge for the month of October.  Each of us will challenge ourselves to do what we've been wanting to do for a long time but haven't gotten around to.  My challenge is to finally paint in oils.

Beginning was a bit intimidating until I remembered this start on an acrylic that I had done in a 1/2-day workshop in the summer of 2014.  It's from a photo of my very photogenic cat Zeke.  I only just got a very beginning on it at the time, so I thought I'd start with that base and finish it in oils.

Below is my progress after a few hours.  I've worked on the background and then just a bit on the face.  My plan is to pretty much finish the background, block in the cat, make any adjustments to the background, then focus on the cat.  Wish me luck!

Before I started I thought the oils would be very similar to acrylics, but they're not!  It will take more working with them to figure out what the differences actually are and how to handle them.  But it's fun!